Leaders of about 100 religious, human rights, security, social, academic and other groups warned that ignoring North Korean "inhuman abuses against its own people, or entering into agreements that finance or legitimize the continuation of those abuses, will ultimately increase the risks of war."

The call came just ahead of the resumption Tuesday of six-party talks in Beijing where the United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas would discuss how to woo North Korea to end its nuclear weapons drive.

"This statement is clear indication that if the president or the administration tries to enter into another framework agreement in which it gave billions of dollars to Kim Jong Il in exchange for weapons promises, this coalition is strong enough to ensure that Congress does not appropriate the funds," coalition spokesman Michael Horowitz told a news conference here.

"The premise of this statement is, 'No American dollars to Kim Jong Il to allow him to build more gas chambers and concentration camps'," said Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, a right wing think tank.

With no progress in the previous three rounds of nuclear talks, the United States has signalled greater flexibility as it enters what is considered a crucial point after a 13-month deadlock.

A change in US rhetoric, including President George W. Bush's polite reference to North Korean leader as "Mister Kim Jong Il" and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recognition of Pyongyang as a sovereign government, helped tempt the regime back to six-party talks.

The Bush administration has also given security assurances to Kim as a way of ending its nearly three-year nuclear standoff with the Stalinist nation. Experts say some administration hawks still want regime change in the North but this could also change.

The administration, which previously lumped North Korea with Iran and pre-war Iraq as an "axis of evil," had reportedly put off naming a special envoy for North Korean human rights as required under the law until after the six-party talks in order to avoid provoking Pyongyang.

The coalition on Monday accused Kim's regime of widespread rights abuses, including deliberate starvation, abduction, family separations, religious persecution, trafficking of women and children, inhumane prisons, the use of gas chambers and the likely practice of genocide.

The abuses had led to an exodus of North Koreans to bordering countries, especially China, which does not consider North Koreans refugees and forcibly sends them back.

"It is critical that in any agreement that is reached with North Korea, there is a human rights dimension," said Mark Palmer, the vice-chairman of Freedom House, which tracks political rights and civil liberties.

A former senior State Department official, Palmer said negotiations with North Korea could be based on the Helsinki accords -model of diplomacy that was used to push for improvements in human rights in the former Soviet Union.

Michael O'Hanlon, an arms control analyst with Brookings Institution, said putting human rights on the agenda with North Korea was in "no way antagonistic or contradictory" to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

"So unless they are prepared to at least assume some level of human rights, any kind of denuclearization process will fail as well," he said.

The United States, he said, need not "aim for the sky" in seeking human rights in North Korea, adding that attaining rights levels of other communist nations such as China and Vietnam could be an initial benchmark.

O'Hanlon said among other "realistic" human rights improvements that should be sought for in North Korea was allowing the Red Cross to be involved in a dialogue on prison conditions in the reclusive nation.

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